Monday, 20 August 2018

Old Tower "Spectral Horizons" (2016)

I'm growing rather fond of Old Tower's stellar approach to Dungeon Synth. The Dutch musician has a knack for composing in this mysterious, illusive realm. It calls from just beyond the horizon, always distant, out of reach, a seemingly calm and uneventful place yet its full of intrigue. The music lingers in its moment, you focus your gaze upon a frozen statue, its pose different with each lapse of attention. Subtlety is the power it yields. With its soft synth and dreary drones Spectral Horizons conjurers a gloomy, majestic atmosphere of time, place, culture and nature that is most likely a personal one for the listener, depending on where your imagination wanders too.

Its soft, elongated melodies and gleams of event in the form gong crashes and buried, pounding tribal drums calling from the deep create quite the sense of epic within this aesthetically meek setting. Its instruments play to their quiet selves, no conflicts arise as they do not compete for attention. Its a cushioned production where the sounds meld sweetly, allowing its most eventful passageways to pass a distracted listener yet suck in the attentive captivated by its shy spell. It has some awkward moments of wind whirling and rain transitioning the music but between them long stretches of yearning, ancient synths and archaic choral chants suck one in.

Like The Rise Of The Scepter, Spectral Horizons is split into two halves around twenty minutes in total and its songs have distinct shifts, clear breaks in its tone and instrumentation that could of been broken into smaller sections however it is not labeled in two parts. The nature of the music commands it to be enjoyed as a whole. With a shorter run time one feels the benefit of curation as these compositions hold well for their duration. They may not call for the most lavish of praises but within their own realm Old Tower is produces some unique magic with this project.

1 comment:

Next to festivals, your blog is one of my favorite ways to find good new bands. you helped me find some gems like hacktivist, danzig and my current favorite band melvins. So I felt obligated to give you some nice bands in return. Clutch has a solid discograpy and i feel like you would like most of their albums. Also going trough your blog Ifind it wierd that you haven't covered any Tool albums, my favorite beeing 10 000 days. anyway, keep up the good work and keep supplying me with good tracks to chill too.

About Me

I'm a music fanatic? Words don't really sum up my affinity for music. Its like my oxygen, and for many years i have been actively exploring the world of music, finding and appreciating as much art as i can. I started this blog to document my musical discovery as well as share it with anyone who's interested.